Improving Cobbers Have
Solid Showing at MSU-Moorhead Open.MOORHEAD-- The number of
wrestlers that Concordia has competing in each tournament is slightly down
from previous years, however the quality of results is steadily increasing
from week to week, meet to meet.

The ever-improving Cobbers
traveled across eighth street to compete in the Dragon Open and came away
with another solid performance and had several wrestlers finish in the
top five of their individual weight class.

Lee Rahrlien (Jr.,
Graceville, Minn.) has emerged as a top-flight collegiate wrestler at 157.
He finished third in the weight division with his only loss coming to two-time
national champion Marcus LeVessuer of Augsburg. Rahrlien was the
only wrestler in the tournament that did not lose to LeVessuer by a pin.
In fact, the rest of LeVesseur's opponents did not make it out of the first
round against the undefeated champion. Rahrlien finished the meet with
a team-best, 4-1 record, and posted three wins over wrestlers from national
power Augsburg. Two of the three wins against the Auggie grapplers came
by pin.

The top finisher for Concordia
was Kevin "Smokey" McBride (So., Eagan, Minn.), who placed second
in the 125-lb weight class. he won his first three matches before finally
losing to Mark Johnston of Dickinson State in the final. McBride
came up with the fastes pin of the day for the Cobbers. In his second match
of the day against Dan Jackson of the University of Mary, McBride
came away with a pin at the 13-second mark.

David Ahmed (So.,
Conrad, Mont.) grabbed fourth place at 165. He won his first three matches
before losing to Casey Flaherty of Augsburg 8-4 in a hard-nosed
collegiate wrestling match. Ahmed finished with a 4-2 record for the day,
with five of his matches being decided by four or fewer points. His two
losses were by decisions of four points and two points.

Dennis Kline (Sr.,
Plymouth, Minn.), wrestling for the first time since he won the 197-lb
weight class at the Cobber Open, went 3-3 and finished sixth at 197. Kline
won two of his three matches by pin. In his second match of the day, he
dispatched Utley Quentin of UM-Morris in only 20 seconds.

Concordia will travel to
St. Cloud next weekend to compete in the St. Cloud State Invitational on
Saturday, December 11 at 9:00am.